Yesterday morning at 5:06am, scholar and linguist Aamer Belkins-Dunjhab was pronounced dead in his suburban home in upstate New York. He had slit his wrists in the tub of the master bathroom. The following cryptic message was found at the scene and is believed to be a suicide note. He was 74 years old.

“I see now that I have been a destructive force in the universe.”

Belkins-Dunjhab is survived by his son Aakash, a student of engineering at Princeton University. Aakash is better known as Kashi Salaam and has done some work as an amateur filmmaker.